01.17.07
living in spontaneity
I cannot forget my first moment to compete in an extemporaneous speaking contest. I was a third year student in high school then when I was chosen to represent my school in the 22nd Karibok ang Tuktok Extemporaneous Speaking Contest sponsored by the UP Batangan. I had no specific trainer, and definitely, I had no prepared speech. All I had was the will. That was the moment when I had proven that will - coupled with work - enables one to hit the target.
Some four years ago, a philosophical statement stimulated my youthful mind, "No one steps on the same river twice." That conception made me deem that my every experience is extraordinary and incomparable. The same muse drove me to grab my pen immediately after tonight’s competition.
It is my sixth time to publicly deliver a contested extemporaneous speech. But even though all of them are nonetheless of the same mechanics, common goal, equal number of audience, each endeavor differs for the reason that each bears a significant virtue that has transformed me from competition to competition.
Tonight’s event stirred my inquisitiveness that in the heat of the moment I was able to see life as a form of extemporaneous speaking. Extemporaneous basically means on the spot, unplanned, unprepared.
And being a comrade of this friend called life for more than seventeen years; I might as well consider it as an omnibus of surprising topics and terrifying questions. The general theme would symbolize our perception of life. The specific topics are the exact events that happen to us from day to day which we cannot predict. Yet the theme would be the basis of the kind of speech that we are going to deliver. In its relevance to life, the way we respond to every situation is dependent on how we plot life’s definition.
Many of our life’s circumstances are faced unprepared. In the midst of the moment, there are times that we would falter. We would stop for seconds to think of what we are going to say or do next. Some words we regret having said them. But nothing can be undone. Extemporaneous delivery, hence, imparts to us the attitude of vigilance. Louis Pasteur once quoted, "Chance favors the prepared mind."
As Filipinos, we are faced with several challenges. Most of the time, we, particularly the Filipino youth, are pressured by the society, media and technology.
Obdurate questions persistently fret our fragile morale. Often times, we do not know how to respond. We feel that we are not eqipped with the ideas, capacity and power to deal with challenges. But what can keep us going?
Speeches last for minutes. Existence lasts a lifetime. But regardless of the span of time they take, both require articulacy and initiative.
In life’s battlefield, we are the ones who must think and do the planning, organizing and eventually delivery or execution. We are given the opportunity to be heard and that we must seize. Take the chance. Seize the day. Carpe diem!
As youth leaders of the Philippines, there is a need to be prepared and to be steadfast. Whatever trial that may come along our way, let us try not to be petrified but pervently strive to thump the nerves of the people adjoining us. Hand in hand, let us set our action plans, anchored by the idealism of the people who came before us and provided the prime purpose of our existence - to initiate a better change and keep on executing though the roads may be tough and opponents greater in number.
"Worth living is the life full of undertakings."
(This was written during the 2nd Luzon Rizal Youth Leadership Institute in Caliraya, Lumban, Laguna, Nov. 25-28, 2005.)
